Electric Shocks
by Graham Chapman
Summary: A collection of oddities.
1. Ford Eats Arthur

FORD EATS ARTHUR'S BATHROBE-----SEXUALLY

"Are you going to eat that bathrobe?" asked Ford of Arthur, clad suggestively in a leather jumpsuit.  
"Uh, erm, uh, no," said Arthur.  
"Smashing, baby," said Ford, grinning, and strutted up to Arthur waggling his eyebrows.  
"W-what are you doing?" said Arthur, feeling very frightened.  
"I'm going to unwrap you like one deliciously sexy banana in which you eat the peel as well," explained Ford, ripping off a strip of fabric from the arm area of Arthur's bathrobe. Then he ate it. "Mmmppmmm," he added in his most suggestive incoherent mumble. He didn't want to be off putting and talk with his mouth full.  
"You don't eat the peel!" yelled Arthur.  
Ford proceeded in ripping off another strip. "This is some appetizer, honey."  
"I'm not going to even try and fathom what you meant by that---and stop that!" he added as Ford ripped off another piece.  
"I wish I could hold you like this bathrobe does. Touching you all over," sighed Ford.  
"Helllllllllllllllllllllp," moaned Arthur.  
Suddenly, they were both shot.  
"Oh thank you God," said Arthur before he died.

THE END


	2. Ford Becomes a Man

FORD BECOMES A MAN

One day, Ford was admiring his new boxer shorts in the mirror. "Yes, I am a MAN now. No more tighty-whiteys for ME."  
Arthur entered the room. "Ford," he was going to say, "have you seen my nail clippers?" but it came out as a really unusual type of sound. The sort of sound you might make if you entered a room where your best friend was standing in his underwear admiring his reflection. It came out a little like this: "Ford----warghmefe!----Sorry"  
"Not at all," said Ford cordially. "I was just admiring my new boxer shorts. What do you think of them?"  
"Very, erm, nice," said Arthur shiftily. "What's that they say on them?"  
"May contain traces of nuts." Said Ford proudly. "It's sort of a gag, you see. Like is printed on the candy boxes."  
"Oh, I see," said Arthur. He decided not to tell him and left the room.

THE END


	3. Five Minutes

_Fondly dedicated to Jordan Kintz, who referred to me as a meanie in his review of Fifty Pickles and a Large Fish_

FIVE MINUTES

Marvin was inescapably bored. In the space of five minutes, he had; calculated the exact combination of the object in his immediate surrounding necessary to create a bomb which would explode the entire universe; gotten annoyed at Zaphod for chewing his ice; attempted to twiddle his thumbs for a bit; and complained loudly about how you would think they would have given him a pair of thumbs which he could twiddle or even any thumbs at all.  
"It's the principle of the thing," he was saying. "Not that you human have any principles anyways."  
Marvin sighed and returned to the bomb thought. That had seemed to him to be a slightly less miserable thought than no thumbs. But he was wrong. It was just as depressing as all the other thoughts that had crossed his mind and these thoughts generally committed a long, drawn out suicide to take their minds off how miserable they were. Marvin sniggered meanly at how confused the concept of thoughts having minds would make these humans.  
It was quite a simple concept.  
Not that anyone cared.  
I mean, he thought. What was their explanation for the mind being able to think several billion thoughts at once? It hurt Marvin's brain to think at their level. He told them so.  
They were yelling and screaming about something _remarkably--_trivial. "Marvin, you have to -----------! We're going to -------!"  
Marvin tuned them out, humming loudly to himself. He noticed that his prosthetic leg was on fire.  
"Isn't that totally miserable," Marvin remarked. "A robot with a prosthetic leg."  
They yelled a little louder.  
"Well. I suppose if I'm the only one here who's smart enough to put out a fire when it's consuming a ship you happen to be on, I'd better do it. I suppose."  
Now they were nodding enthusiastically and waving their arms about and looking idiotic.  
Marvin honestly could not understand human stupidity.  
How depressing.

THE END


	4. The Part of the Universe Nobody Likes

_For Demus and for Douglas_

THE REALLY ANNOYING PART ABOUT THE UNIVERSE

Ford Prefect was in the middle of a terribly awkward situation. He had climbed inside a wall. He had also seemingly overestimated the amount of space allowed inside of walls. It had actually never been that great of a plan to begin with and Ford had realized that. He just wished that he had realized it more…better. As it was, he was tightly lodged, with no hopeful prospects of moving in future so far as he could see, and he was only about five inches away from the large gaping hole he had cut in the wall to let himself in the wall in the first place. He was feeling thoroughly uncool.  
The really annoying part was that the whole thing had been a scheme to save Arthur Dent, a friend that Ford wasn't actually too fond of anymore, anyway.

A bead of sweat formed on Arthur's forehead. This was quickly joined by another one to keep the first one company and they had brought along a friend, would that be alright, and the friend might have called some cousins who were in town but they were all very well behaved, it was sure, and the neighbors might come over-just to be friendly. In short, Arthur was sweating a lot (or perspiring, if you're that type of person.)  
He had been abducted and jailed by some Jubanese lifeforms and he didn't know why.

The Hitchhiker's Guide has a very extensive section dedicated to the Jubanese:

_Jubanese lifeforms_, it says, _are humanoid and snakelike in appearance and converse amongst each other using the third most abnormal language in –quite possibly- the entire Universe._ (The second most unusual language being, of course, English and the first most unusual being Plantic, which is spoken in such high pitches, the entire race killed each other off by piercing each other's brains when asking another to pass them the orange juice.) _What makes Jubanese so unusual is the fact that it is entirely composed of English words in unusual orders. Jubanese speakers rarely get along with English speakers as most common English phrases translate in to mortally offending insults in Jubanese. The Jubanese are well known for exploiting their naturally long and thin bodies in the modeling industry and because of this, the Jubanese are widely considered to be what all aliens look like and are indeed, on some unfashionable planets, called The Generic Alien. There are frequently two or more Jubanese at any party worth going to so, if you speak English, it is vitally important to watch what you say. Another thing the Jubanese excel at is developing unusual forms of torture with which to punish English speakers.  
The Guide goes on to detail the population distribution patterns of the Jubanese, traditional Jubanese cuisine, and universal holidays invented by Jubanese card companies. _

Personally, Arthur felt that it had been slightly excessive of them to strap him down to a table using leather straps, chains, and a feather boa—especially when he was already inside of a small jail cell with electrically charged bars. Especially since all he'd said was, "Are those corduroy trousers?" He certainly hadn't known that translated in to Jubanese, with perfect grammar, as, "I have a great dislike for your family. Would you like me to skin you with my teeth or would you prefer it if I merely boiled your eyes?"  
And even if he had meant to say that, it wasn't as if he had done anything.

Ford was having an extreme case of conflicting interests. On one hand, if he called for help, the chances were he'd be removed from inside the wall, which was something he'd really like at this point. On the other hand, it would probably be Jubanese guards who helped him out and they probably would not take kindly to the guy who put huge gaping holes in their walls. He sighed, sucked in his breath and rammed his back in to the other side of the wall. The wall remained entirely intact and Ford quickly put on a grin to show that that was exactly what he had meant for to happen. He was just going to try it again, alright, not because he had meant for it to break the first time or anything like that. He tried it again. The wall crumpled like paper.  
Ford took a bow.  
About fifty Jubanese guards jumped on him.  
"Nrrgh!"

Trillian rammed the break button yet again, bringing the spacecraft behind her uncomfortably close to her rear. She closed her eyes, counted to ten, and leaned on the sonar.  
Traffic jams of the Super-efficient Galactic Highway were pretty much unavoidable and she hadn't seen Random in the past six years.  
About twenty spaceships ahead of Trillian, Zaphod was looking sadly at the wreckage of his. Maybe it would have been fine if the chick who had crashed in to him had been hot as well as incompetent but no such luck.  
She kept gesturing at her radio, saying she'd radio the cops and they'd come sort this out.  
Zaphod really really did not want her to do this. Really.  
And he was only receiving minimal satisfaction from holding up traffic.  
"Zaphod?" called Trillian out of her window.  
"In the flesh, baby."  
"Get in."  
The woman sorted through some papers. "And I've got my insurance plan right here…" She trailed off. Zaphod was long gone.

"Peas!" cried Ford. "I….Can….See….The….Mustard!" he moaned.  
"Shut up," said the female guard. Of course, she was Jubanese and in Jubanese this meant, "I find you really attractive. Just say the word and I'll let you go. But please---take me with you!"  
Ford fell silent.  
Ford fell unsilent. "Look, you," he growled. "I'm not going to sit here quietly forever, you know. You were actually really lucky to get me to keep quiet this long, I can tell you. Just ask my employer or my best friend, Arthur Dent who I'm not that fond of anymore, anyway."  
This was a bit trickier. The guard assumed that Ford was specking Jubanese for surely, he couldn't possibly be a hated English speaker.  
She puzzled over his meaning for five minutes and came up with this:  
"I am particularly fond of salmon flavoured snacks at government parties, do you? What is your name, beautiful creature."  
"Example," bubbled Example happily. "One large pointy stick and your eye." (This was how Ford heard it in English; it has not been translated from Jubanese.)  
"Are you threatening me?" asked Ford gravely. Which in Jubanese means, "Your eyes look just like stars would look if stars looked like your eyes."  
Example clapped her hands in delight. "I love you!" she declared or, in English, "I'll teach you!" as she threw open the jail cell's door.  
"Let's not be hasty," said Ford, moving for the door. JUBANESE: "I return your love. Let's go save Arthur."

Arthur looked disinterested at the ceiling as a couple of Jubanese prison guards continued with their futile attempts at tickling his kneecaps.  
The Jubanese are well known for the thousands of methods of torture they have developed to use against English speakers. However, none of them are especially good.  
Prisoners of the Jubanese most commonly die of boredom.  
"Arthur! Arthur!" cried Ford. "I've discovered the secret of the Jubanese language!" Then he remembered where he was and why he shouldn't be speaking English where he was. "I'll tell you about it later," he whispered.  
"Great," said Arthur.  
All Jubanese present in the room gasped and began tickling his kneecaps harder than ever. They also considered the possibility of bringing in a cute kitten.  
"You have only TWELVE fruit cups left with me, pal," said Example, shocked. ENGLISH: "This is the friend you wanted to save!"  
"Fifty pickles and a large fish," said Ford. ENGLISH: "It can only get better".  
"Alphabetilized telephone books!" said one of the guards. ENGLISH: That exchange made no sense at all.  
"Thank you," said Ford modestly.

Suddenly, Zaphod and Trillian began firing at the Jubanese base.

"Are those gun shots?" asked Arthur. He smiled gently as a cute kitten was placed softy on his chest. It purred and curled up to sleep.

"I think the defense has about five minutes to hold out," said Zaphod, making some calculations.

"Shielded light!" muttered the guard. ENGLISH: "I think the defense has about five minutes to hold out."

The wall of the Jubanese base began to crack. (It was a bad day for Jubanese walls). "Finally!" said Zaphod. Trillian bit her lip, focusing.

"Finally!" they heard Zaphod say and the ship was tearing in to the torture room.  
"Hi guys!" said Zaphod. "We're here to rescue you!"

THE END


End file.
